Anywhere out of the world
by Lorindel
Summary: Post Death in Heaven. Clara shouldn't indulge in philosophical speculations about lurid topics like death, high heels, nicknames, or the Doctor. Especially the Doctor. Likewise, the Doctor seems a bit too keen on musing on long, deserted shores: a ridiculously romantic alloy that could only bring him to even more preposterous decisions.
1. Chapter 1

**Warning: Clara does not belong to me, but I confess I recklessly kidnapped the Doctor and intend to spend my Christmas holidays on the Tardis. Of course, you are all invited, gents, but I keep for myself the lion's share. Shall probably give him back for the ninth season. Anyhow, as the party is on the way (nakedness is forbidden, looking at you, Matt Smith's devotees), this piece of fiction is a very small contribution to the major rager of our gathered fantasies. Enjoy!**

The flimsy impression of the Doctor's hands on her chin have always made her squirm with squeamishness. His perennially furious cerulean eyes usually maddened her. The length of his thin, lean body, as if every cell was stretching to the mesosphere, in search of a paradise lost, put her into a qualm of unresolved desires: either make him begin a fat-only diet, either iron him flat to enlarge his bony sides. Either (but this was an acting-out she was talented to repress), to strenuously coax his dry flesh. Of course, he used to dodge and stall the volition of her inner control freak: putting pressure on him, forcing him to reveal the stranded truths they were hiding to each other, was useless (Danny; Gallifrey: did she need to expand, really? She had enough on her plate already).

They had met several times, after the "tragic event" (she had adopted the same lingo as every charitable soul around; it seemed to minimize the impact of the memory. Never had the infamous catchphrase "bigger in the inside" rung truer than now. The word death, for instance, encapsulated so many dimensions that Clara could hardly tie them up, into her drawers, locked, never meant to be opened again. So she preferred to cope with one of them, the flimsy, shallow sentence, that seemed to allude to an external event to which she was not connected. Of course, when one had a reputable place in a well-known school, and furthermore, when one had been too eager to hobnob with strange men from nowhere, and subsequently lost someone of importance, one had to conserve one's wits ready for verbal face-offs and inquiries coming from hypocritical charitable souls: her reputation, along with Danny and the Doctor's, had to be defended. Indeed, she had heard all sorts of extrapolations about the mysterious instigator of her frequent jaunts, if that was not, recently, ambiguous questions or morbid souvenirs. Having set aside the cadaverous nosy parkers, Clara usually answered with buoyant bravado to the indiscretions on the Doctor. Alas, in light with the recent collateral damages of the war (yes, she was using dodging euphemisms, so what?), he was becoming a legend. With the help of cheeky Courtney, his own hubris found a childish pleasure in knowing he was being talked about. He did nothing to prevent the amused slanders or the hyperbolic descriptions. Fortunately, he did not know the last laudatory qualifications that some (rare) enlightened have found out: "Paternal figure?" one of her colleagues had suggested; "pimp!", the late Danny had interjected after one of her belated absence. Vaguely guilty, she had retaliated "friend", in a conciliatory gesture. But the row was on a seamless track now; the ghost of a memory was arguing that a word was mere air, didn't she know that truism? Besides, she had not a clue of what truthfulness is! ...Danny had always been too keen to pinpoint her drawbacks; little would he have known his quibbles would continue to haunt her!

Was she being unfair to him, even in his state of passive respondence, absent-mindedness? Naturally. That was one of her best survival skills, with lies, and high heels, whatever the weather did with that last derring-do. She had taken a singular interest in putting this scaffold on, primarily designed for dwarves and altitudinarian women. Her fancy had begun in one of their most thrilling adventures, the all-encompassing heist (that included time, the bank, the drooling telepaths, and the doctor – he was, she curiously thought, her stolen good; and she was so reluctant to give him back; for no reason than her own habituation to his presence, really). Besides, heels would top up her dwarfishness and prevent high backs to bend over her. More opportunities to embrace! (But why was she saying this? To juxtapose embrace, heels, and bodily part was an absurd association of ideas; purely coincidental.)

Despite her pro-active coping, the word "death" still wakened her up in the dead hours of the night, and even thinking to popular tropes of Shakespearean lovers reunited in a sleight of hand did not clear up her mind. She knew she needed a catharsis, an exogenous force that would purify her of the mess of semi-naked young thoughts that were flocking around her cortical shepherd. She desperately needed something, or someone, that would cure her from the guilt, the anguish of having indirectly cast Danny away, in a far-off purgatory, or, put simpler, an indomitable void. More than her crushed emotions, she needed to know he was safe somewhere, and not powerlessly drifting in an unlit space. Arguing with herself on the necessity of keeping the cognizance at bay, she had concluded she would not be at peace with herself if she did not check his well-being (well, non-being, to be fair). The logical result of this reasoning was, as almost every of her qualms, that alone, she was in the lurch. Even with her sense of self-responsibility, she could not possibly set out a journey to the hades land. Or make a contact without the magic of techs (when she met the doctor for the first time, she truly believed he was a wizard, the embodiment of her childhood's dreams, and even sillier, that their encounter was not a coincidence – remnant of pagan beliefs based on the concept of kindred spirits, thanks, medieval French lays, Romantic XIXth century, Clara's backward mind!).

The point was, the only person in this world who could help her was precisely the one she wanted to avoid. Weird coincidence. Clara, however, had already a plan up her sleeves, i.e., get rid of her own queasiness; obliterate the possible doubts about her and the doctor, and the jam in which she was thrown each time he confronted her; then, ask him the impossible. He had already made up for his non-confessed mistake towards her, though, and she did not see how the odds would stand by her after so many setbacks. Albeit their natural proclivity of transforming the tragedy to comedy, both knew Clara had asked too much, and rather badly. What could serve her was the fact that the Doctor, even if the ratio was definitely leaning towards his innocence in most of the cases in which he incriminated, was not innocent. Clara did not need to list up the grievances (bullying, retention of information, bullying, patronization; which could be recapitulated fairly well: manipulative, type-A personality). For him, an atonement would not be amiss. And Clara would gladly provide for him the necessary washing-over, only if he showed a benevolent subservience (OK, that did not sound compatible, but she knew how to coax him. No. Yes. That was not the point, and every tidbit of conversation with herself turned out to be endlessly scathing and useless. Clara Oswald, back to work!)

His squeamishness has often made her wriggle with embarrassment. His furious eyebrows have purpled her face with the same emotion as she dug a finger into boiling water willingly. The straightforwardness of his chin that forestall any future tactile intrusion has imprinted a scarlet coal in her mind, as a decoy that would blow up at first contact. Clearly, he infuriated her: she could not pull off a normal existence without him interfering. Her eyebrows mirrored his scornful hands, these regulative tools that soothed the Tardis and could do the same to her, had he wanted to.

Six months had elapsed since Danny's death. (She could finally pronounce the lethal word; a feeble feat she did not care for anymore). The Doctor had popped in her flat once; two in the caretaker's lodging (finally returned from his forced truancy; slightly befuddled of the mixing up of his brooms and repainted blue brushes); three in Glasgow's high street (by a carefully built dishonesty, he has claimed he did not choose in purpose; the ship seemed to have residual agency, etc. Clara knew it was a throwback to their formal beginning, when they started the distanciation and foreign gawks). The coffee he offered her the morning after the robotic mayhem had a sour taste of a disgusted present and past nostalgia. The table he picked up in the Starbucks was a bit burned and gilded; a anthropomorphic Tardis steering control behind which she reluctantly slid. She understood the choice as a message of breaking up their partnership: she would play in the narrowed sandbox of human life; meanwhile, he would assert his control on the swirling birth of planets and take care of the grains of supernovas fledglings. Speaking of embryos, she recalled that every topic of their conversation was nipped in the bud; either by her eagerness to have the last word, or the definite repliquee that would manifest her anger more blatantly. He simply did not fit in the model that she had crafted in her head during the one month of abandon; haphazardly asking questions that aimed at filling a gap he could not comprehend. She did not ask for pleasantness, or compassion; just attention; and he was as far as a damned alien, which he by nature was, but which was gradually wading out. So she hoped. At the last request commanding her to narrate her last hanging out with "bow tie English teacher", she had bounced on her feet and left the place.

Yes, basically, that did not turn out well. And the next meetings were as pitiful as the first. The cherry on the cake was the day when he came up with three hours delay, on the grounds he landed his Tardis in a field infested by aggressive mutants (that revealed to be combined harvesters). She had passed the hour trying to weed off the hay from his hair. Needless to say, their conversation shrunk to irritated quips and sulking scowls. The earlier doctor would have banter at length with his customary humor, flicking her cheeks and smiling mischievously. They would have departed from each other in a friendly way; implicit promises given and understood of a prompt return. The slapstickness of every situation never escaped him; and she did not care about comic relief at the time, because life with him was a play. The newfangled setting was, however, very far from that. A post-modern rewriting, full of gloom and uncertainties, of a Midsummer's space dream, with the chill of the infamous Greek tragedies, when suddenly an omen starts foreboding and all things go astray. The Pythic voice could endorse the persona of a threatening computer in a surreal train, or the over-the-top, carnal lipstick on hostile lips. The pangs of separation were, nonetheless, the same. Clara did not have the keys to the Doctor's mind that could have opened him to her. She wished she had laid hold on one of these two pumping machines that bore a very vague resemblance to her own.

And as time passed, winter turning into summer, summer into spring, for her conscience of seasons momentarily had gaps (malfunctioning as she was), she felt she was losing her grip on the already scant snippets she possessed. She had indeed acquired bits of knowledge, stemming from furtive stealth and semi-overt shenanigans. Some questions, sometimes, flowed, unstoppable, from her lips. Some answers were given, but they were rare. With the new Doctor, she had to use new skills of induction, deduction; most of the time, the rule of thumb prevailed. Now, the scarcity of his visits, if it spared her some heightening of her blood pressure, was drilling into her sapience. The Doctor was acquiring a second capital adjunct to his nickname, which was itself transforming into a severe title. The eyebrows took up the authority of a valetudinarian friend one would not dare to cross. Or the charisma of a familiar enemy. That was not the most upsetting, for Clara, out of her depth, began not to care to identify their relationship anymore.

The need, however, remained.

** (To be continued, or not. Critiques are much, much appreciated!)**


	2. Chapter 2

The light, albeit billowy wave, and the coming and going of his hair, adrift in the salted air, made him quiver, despite his supposed regulative intern thermometer stabilized at sixteen degrees Celsius, sixty degrees Fahrenheit, able to sustain normal activity, if diminished, in a subzero and under-pressurized environment. He knew it. In fact, he could say without a doubt he knew everything, at least, of the composition of each atom in the universe, each grain of sand slipping between his toes: the scent of the moist and seaweeds embroidered rocks did not escape him, and the emotional tinge of carbon molecules willing to collude with their hydrogen likes. Thanks to his supra-senses, he could hear the sound of the seagulls as well as their parasites; the song of the ebb and the complaint of the tide. Even the shock-wave of a radiation could not pass up his attention. On the lookout, the Doctor was the receptacle of a myriad, different worlds, and not one of them could utter any minatory words without him knowing, before every living sentient creature. He was the master, but the amanuensis too; the keeper, but the fugitive, for what lies ahead of him, and what lies below, were ploys to entrap as well as ploys to be rescued. Unknighted servant of numerous twisted galaxies, he pulled off uncountable successes, but eschewed the rewards. /p

pWith a devil-may-care grin, the Doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Ar, the scoundrels", his hoarse voice muttered, "what could they do without the prying old Scotch?" He stretched forward his right leg, feeling with rapture his flesh bit by the wind of the East coast. He turned over and faced the declining sun. Patches of blood like half-skinned tangerines were propagating along the line of the horizon, and he could peek without squinting the immaterial dust of the light whirling in the crisp air. That was beautiful, as a robotic human (or humanoid robot, you could never guess the proper name, for a newfangled species) had remarked once. Pity he has not elaborated the eulogy; but it was his fault if he fell and crucified himself on a Londonian canopy. With a little time, he could have become a poet, innit? The Doctor sighed. Numbered of these strange things would have turned out rather well, had they given him more time to repair them. Stubbornness was not the privilege of tiny human beings only, apparently. Talking of which, where was Clara now? ...yes, he remembered, reluctantly, almost on a rampage with himself. Her existence was meant to engross others; she was so heavy-handed in everything she set off to do; so noisy, dysfunctional, obnoxious, yet charming, humorous, clever; the cleverest he had ever witnessed, save him, of course, altogether with his kind. But stubborn! Damn, he was adamant nobody could turn so easily the table and still make everyone smile and fawn around her. He admired her for her perfunctory abilities to get things done and over with. He liked the easiness of her company, the amiable banter they shared. However, he did not liked the perfect past; he positively hated the sense of an ending; and he inwardly railed against the squirming sensation of being in the wrong. Why should he be? He had outdone her: she had believed his (usual) prevarication with her wide, lacrimatory eyes (inflation was nothing to do with; that was simply a quirk of these creatures, to overreact; and the Doctor was relieved that the outlet for their grief was as innocuous as these drops of mucus, vaguely sticky, certainly annoying). His biggest achievement, along with the safeguarding of the planet, was the self-mastery of his gait, the last day, their last hour together, when every word had been disclosed and gone over; when they had concluded their trade-off and parted friends, without harshness. Just a nice hug, and clear off. That was good; he did not know he possessed the resources, very human, to entertain a conversation devoid of tension and remonstrances. With regards to their mutual past, that was an exploit. /p

pBut now, there he was, wandering along a coast, sand and wind and shrieks of the beasts of the air, and a nasty prickle in his chest. Why the bad temper, whereas everything had been said? Long story short, he was imbued with her: her last, sad smile, the thump of her heart to which even the deafest of the Time Lords could have hearkened, the vibration that her side-way glances provoked. Maybe he needed a full examination; the sum of his previous regenerations could have engendered a perennial glitch in his system; his immune defenses were decreasing in efficiency. Medicine, medicine! He should cater for himself, but how? Never before had he fallen sick, or perhaps when he was in his infancy; anyway, that should not be happening. Who could elucidate the rub, who could provide for him, who could lodge his beloved Tardis while he recovered? Of course, only one answer popped in his head, and that was the one he picked. /p

He began to pace restlessly on the shore, bouncing when he encountered a depression in the ground; muttering to himself. Interrogations loomed over his back that needed to be abide; fantastic reveries filled him to the full; shooting stars cleansed his desire for belated communes that he still had to partake with intergalactic astronauts. Duties rose, then fell down; set aside by a volition to which he was foreign. Askance, he pondered on the meaning of the exquisite passions wrought out of the pages of several books that his library contained; till at the brink of exhaustion, he flung them down. Kabbalistic cryptograms did not open up the doors of his mysterious dreams; nor the esoteric rituals of primeval races, destined to assuage the anguish and quench the thirst of worshippers. When his excitation finally ended, the Doctor headed to the console board and introduced the well-known coordinates. His weary eyelids bore the resignation of those on whom is impinged the seal of secrets being disclosed.


	3. Chapter 3

Coffee. Two cups of them, packed in one bag of viennoiseries. Inside? The heat will melt the pastries; Doctor, do you have a pudding brain like your self-professed friends, or are you too aloof to even care for these trivia? And don't lose your balance now; nobody likes weird Scots men impregnated with brackish liquid and irritability. And what about the tuxedo, is it not a wee flaunting? Too late to change your mind, Doctor, the Tardis voices her brakes buoyantly and Clara is waiting. Or maybe not, but he won't need any blandishments to convince her of a coffee with an old friend. Especially if said friend keeps at check a putative redemption. Vita Nuova, as his old pal Alighieri would have put it.

Reason. Two mouthfuls of it, inserted in Clara's cervical orifice, and munched without any glee. She was not expecting a deus ex machina; at least, she tried. Like a mantra, she summoned up every bit of pluckiness she had one day possessed in order to avert her own teenage-like angst. Like in many situations of extreme danger, she could not help thinking of her pupils, and their bold, if cheeky, assertions. That usually plunged her into an ire so strenuous that she found her lost stamina in the twinkling of an eye. However, it seemed to her that nothing was congruent with the programming of the old machinery. Clara Oswald was ageing. Chide set aside, she knew there was some truth in that last observation: physically, the natural process of decay was still on the downtime (no matter how she tried to escape, some cads regularly hit on her). Mentally, she was weary, and pondering if there remained something worthwhile. Suddenly, her life had become a dull spadework, bereft of tingles, run-in, and run-away. Escapism, so feeble a solution, had become her last resource: a resort in which she could unwind, either in books (she discovered that Pride and Prejudice still retained some mysteries, notably the peculiar envision of the marriage as something intrinsically fine, bringing wealthy assets as well as sentimental triggers. This materialism pleased her. And above all, she could play, and play out! the morning scene during which the Doctor's perpetual critical head has bounced out of a window and interfered in her class. "1786, not '84!" She was angry at the time, thinking his behavior out of line. But if she did not appreciate being reduced to an infant, she could not stand the silence that replaced the man's authoritative misappropriations of her territory, her room, her clothes, for even they were redolent of mechanics, stardust, exotic and prurient scents, evocative of their outings together. It was not particularly agreeable to spot remnants of acromentula's saliva on some of her jumpers, or sniff a stench of rotting earth from a too familiar cemetery. But these were her memories, and since she was condemned to muck around there, forlorn and endowed with solitude, that was as good as nothing. And the Doctor's strong, spicy smell was still impinging on most of her coats, making her mouth twist, and savaging her brain: a broken spaceship she was, in deep ground buried, still resonating of her last captain's call, or his far-off, if imaginary, echo.

Was it then the cling of her memories concussing, or just a fantasy that freshened that sterile bladder of hers, rattling with agitated blood, mirroring the rustle sound of a vessel landing? Was she too engrossed by the pathological desire of "being special"? (How trite, how below par was her formulation; but in her leminal state, imbued with PTSD and the cold air of London, it was miraculous she could make out one sentence).

Looking over her shoulder, she could see a form, slowly appearing. By fits and starts, the Tardis was teleporting into the room she had been seated all night, sleep eluding her. The blast, like a choking breathe, made the pages of Proust's Swann's Way flip; Clara would not find her passage again, but she could not care less: the Doctor's return was more tangible than Combray running out of a cup of bum tea. She jumped to her feet, then stopped with a jolt: what if it wasn't the Doctor, but someone else piloting? She has experimented that before, and the twisted sensation of loss and anger was simply not bearable; she could not fancy a similar stab. She closed her eyes.

The mutter of the doors, opening painstakingly slowly; the thump of steps, cautiously probing the solid ground; an irregular pant, expirating, jettisoning lumps of air, as if the experience was utterly new, and worthy, and even good; the sudden standstill that followed. Eerie apparition; you are yanking my shackles, and it hurts; but I will stand my ground. Clara, summon up your guts, and see what you have to see, either the void or the droll!

And there he was: thinner than the usual, gaunt and clumsy, with his stiff arms and slim hands, carrying two paper cups smoking with coffee. She inspired, for the first time since the familiar noise gave voice to her loose reminiscences. She was soaking up the comfort that oozed and the smile that endured. She was retaining the dazzle of the eyes, whose aquamarine hue did not cover up the one, single drop of a rippling substance that human had once called emotion. The word has never betrayed its true meaning.

-Clara, pack your things, and come along!

In spite of his tear, and her badly muted shriek, he waved excitedly, which was a reckless thing to do, when one is burdened with the gate-away to your friend's heart, or at least, her mouth. It was Clara's fortune not to be splashed by the coffee; contrariwise, the rubs still oozes of the distinctive fragrance of this morning, when the Doctor decided his roams were pointless without any pain-lifter, or, as Clara has settled firmly, a resilient jester: alone among the other companions, only she could cook up schemes that even the mischievous bow tie boy would not have made up; or stir an inner storm within the Tardis that would rampage the shelves and jilt the books on the floor. After another embrace, another kiss, another lick on the ripped-out lipstick, and last (but not least) fumble in the disorganized bob, the Doctor would admit he had deserved that knocking-about of his things, that disorganisation that was so extrinsic to his nature (and hers; but in space, the coercive, boring regulations did not apply); that the pride he conferred on his solitude was idiotic, and toiling his way in the sand, all by himself, was exhausting and soul-extinguishing. A crutch, as small in height as she was, was the requisite for adventures; material for the new stories that would invest the tiny human's world; perhaps, with a little dint of luck, transmogrify the pudding into a wholesome pastry, sugared as Clara's lips were not, and evanescent as her presence was stable.


End file.
